Have a look at the Expansys page describing the unit Treo 600 - it is the thing dreams are made of!

I wangled a loan for several days (shame it is only available on Orange - I am a long-term Vodafone customer and happy with their service) and played with it. Orange have exclusivity on it for a 6-month period. Maybe I can get a SIM-free unit from Expansys or from the USA.

It is a Palm OS device and so I don't have to change my sync, my style, my input (all good so far) and it has a proper mic and speaker - no stupid dangly bit of string (gets better) and it is only 11.2 x 6.0 x 2.2 cm in size (smaller than the XDA)

WHY CAN'T I HAVE ONE NOW??????????

Colin Allison (currently working with a Sony Ericsson t68i and a Palm Zire to pick up email)

I have been looking for a large screen PDA with built in phone for over a year, and the only one i have found that is any good is the i-mate (02's XDA Mk2) in its original manufacturers brand, also known as a Qtek Phone.

I live on a boat in the middle of nowhere with no telephone let alone broadband, and on the basis i run a telecoms company offering Virtual PBX and Virtual Call Centre services i need to have internet/email access from home so purchased a Sierra Option Globetrotter PCMCIA card with a Vodofone GPRS contract.

The Vodafone Contract has problems in that its signal is poor and my company can now offer satellite broadband to people like me with a mini dish/receiver but no satellite operator in the world will accept a ping via the Vodafone GPRS network for some reason??

In order to get a reasonable signal with the Vodafone GPRS card i had to spend over £200 on ariels and a small ariel mast (27ft telescopic), therefore i am planning to change over to a SIM free (dont like being held to ransom) i-mate 256mb, with a dual sim card adaptor to use my existing T-mobile (Max signal where i live) number and sign up for a seperate 02 GPRS contract as the satellites will accept a ping from an 02 (BT) connection, i will then be able to surf the net and collect email via i-mate and/or my laptop via a USB cable connection.

The i-mate uses Windows Pocket PC Ver2 operating system, and comes with Outlook 2002, and mini Word, Excel, etc, and everything to get started as far as i aware, if anybody has any further info on the i-mate that i dont know about, please get in touch as £600 for sim free is an expensive mistake to make?

If any body wants further information on using GPRS for internet/email access as it aint as simple as Vodafone or anybody would lead you to believe, just get in touch via this site or by email asimmons@telephone-central.co.uk

Regards

Alex Simmons

http://www.telephone-central.co.uk

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